Editorial: Grasp the nettle and make the 'tick' work

If you prised open the mouth of the new Fundraising Standards Board
and shone a light inside, you wouldn't find much in the way of
teeth.

A couple of white buttons gleaming at the back, maybe, that may or may
not grow into something more formidable in due course. Does this
matter?

Probably not too much at this stage, although in due course it
might.

The vital thing now is for everyone to pile on board so the new
self-regulatory scheme rapidly acquires wide participation and critical
mass.

This will help establish its credibility, which in turn will give it a
firmer basis for deciding what kind of sanctions it should develop and
apply. So charities and fundraising agencies should check out the cost
of joining, reach into their pockets, dust off their copies of the
Institute of Fundraising codes of practice and acquire the right to
display the elegantly designed tick symbol. The potential benefits are
cheap at the price.

What are the arguments against joining? The first is the routinely
repeated assertion that there's nothing broke, so don't fix it. But it's
an assertion that needs some examination. Where is the evidence that the
public is broadly satisfied with the behaviour of the fundraising
industry? It's actually hard to find any. The best the Strategy Unit
report could come up with in 2002 was that "levels of trust in the
sector are generally high, but concerns about fundraising practice may
be eroding public confidence".

It quoted a 1998 NCVO report that established dissatisfaction about
intrusive methods, manipulative content and too many appeals.

The second argument against joining is that establishing a scheme and a
'kitemark' could plant the thought in the mind of an otherwise satisfied
public that something is amiss, and that the result will be a surge of
spurious complaints.

The answer to this, surely, is to put it to the test. The level and
types of complaint will help fill the information vacuum mentioned above
and assist the evolution of the FSB's methods and sanctions. This makes
for an informed debate. There's no substitute for grasping the
nettle.

There are huge potential benefits if the scheme is successful. If it's
built up and communicated successfully, a time could come when the
cowboys are put out of business because people will only give if they
see the tick mark. And charities would know more about practices that
alienate donors and have an effective mechanism to curtail them.